Andhra CM hails BJP's economic reforms

As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national executive met yesterday morning to deliberate on political strategies for early polls, the party's political discourse revolved around just one theme""economics.

The day began with an elaborate explanation of the political impact of reforms in Andhra Pradesh by Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu.

Speaking to reporters, Naidu was all praise for Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the NDA government for carrying out "economic reforms with a human face".

Vajpayee returned the compliment. He commented, in his speech at the public rally, that the TDP had been a valuable ally of the NDA and wished they had joined the NDA government.

May be next time, he said. Chandrababu Naidu emphasised that economic reform was inevitable for India's development quoting the famous saying: "It does not matter whether the cat is black or white so long as it catches mice".

In Naidu's view, his decade long agenda of economic reform would yield "good political dividend" and stand him in good stead during the Assembly and the Lok Sabha polls.

In his 40-minute interaction with the media, Naidu talked mostly about fiscal discipline, open skies policies, labour reform, privatisation and agri-reform. The shrewd politician that he is, Naidu, in fact, has been silently setting the political agenda for the BJP executive.

That the BJP chose Hyderbad as the venue for its national executive before the early polls for the Lok Sabha was calculated to showcase Andhra Pradesh as a model example of "shining India".

With Naidu wearing his reformist badge prominently on his chest in the election campaign, the BJP leadership appears to have decided to build its political campaign on the economic reforms issue, India-wide.

This was evident in the discussions at the party's executive in the first day. BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu talked about the rising growth trajectory in the country which generated the feel-good factor and "self-pride" in the country.

In the economic resolution drafted primarily by Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley, the government's achievements in extending the social security network were highlighted along with India's acceptability as the third world.

By all indications, there is political epiphany between the BJP and the TDP on economic issues. But given that the TDP and the BJP are currently sharing the same social support base, and on the ground, are political rivals, highly placed sources in the state BJP say the prevailing bonhomie between the BJP-TDP is guided by political calculation.

After ten years in Andhra Pradesh, Naidu's claiming credit for the prevailing feel-good factor is nothing but deception, they say.

"Naidu is trying to take advantage of Vajpayee's growing popularity even in Andhra Pradesh to win this elections" they said, while wondering whether the euphoria of economic policy would really work in elections.

The irony that Andra Pradesh boasts of having "the best road in the country and the highest number of suicides by farmers" they say, is too glaring to be missed in the elections.

But the BJP leadership has justifiably claimed the credit for making economic issues the focus of the political campaign for the first time in the country.

So much was the dominance of economics at the executive that Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi not only talked about Gujarat being the state where per capita income of Muslims is the highest in the country but also decided to rush back to Ahmedabad tonight to inaugurate an international kite-flying festival which annually generates Rs 100 crore for the state.